The State Of Architectural Education

"Certain architecture schools under certain deans have managed to capture the sense of their epoch while simultaneously moving the profession forward. One thinks of Walter Gropius at Harvard’s GSD, Yale under Paul Rudolph, John Hejduk at Cooper Union, Alvin Boyarsky at the AA, Bernard Tschumi at Columbia, and Peter Cook at the Bartlett. One cannot imagine these places without the strong leadership of their deans. Gropius founded the GSD and helped bring modernism to the United States, while Rudolph encouraged debate among his faculty and never required a party line. Hejduk forged a new way of thinking about and representing architecture. Each set a course for architecture with which every subsequent generation has had to contend. As architecture regains cultural currency, its protagonists are being asked again to imagine how our surroundings might look, work, and grow. Architectural educators have immense potential to influence the shape of the world to come."